The present invention relates generally to shoes and attachments therefor, and more particularly to children's shoes incorporating a pressure-activated tone generator for emitting music, voice messages, or like sounds.
In addition to providing improvements in comfort and wear of shoes, the manufacturer may seek unique and appealing features for adding to a shoe in order to capture the fancy of the consumer. This is especially true with footwear for infants and children where amusing features on shoes are often tantamount criteria to the buyer. Indeed, some of these features may also serve functional purposes. For example, colorful reflectors or illuminators on sneakers or jogging shoes also offer greater visibility on dark thoroughfares and highways. Another device alerts the wearer with an audible signal when the shoe becomes loose and is about to slip off. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,556 to Young J. Kim, for example, an electronically stored melody is emitted when a fastening strap over the shoe loosens and exposes a photovoltaic cell to light. Similarly, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,646,350 to Batra a microcircuit in the fold of a shoe strap activates an audible message when the strap is fastened or loosened. Neither of these systems are designed to allow amusing interludes at times other than when the shoe is fastened or loosened. This is because the activating element is substantially inaccessible for an operator's fingers while the shoe is properly fastened on the foot. Consequently, the playful novelty of the shoe is significantly limited.